by IronRaven
editorial assistance by Lachesis-chan
Souta, Kohaku and everyone else involved in this is the property of Rumiko Takahashi-sama. The exception to that is Hideoshi O'Leary. He is as much my mental property as I am his mental property.
In places, this piece breaks with my normal convention of having thoughts italicized, simply because it is told in the first person. It would suck if everything were slanty letters. You should be able to figure out where it is.
---
What am I doing here? I never go out at night. Oh, yes, I am to kill Inuyasha.
Why am I supposed to kill Inuyasha? I don't want to kill him. I don't want to kill anyone. I didn't want to be a hunter. But my honor says I must. Master says that the beast killed my sister, and took her body to use as a stooge and plaything, enslaving her soul. The monster killed my father, murdered my village. The monster must die, and as the last hunter, it is my responsibility.
Ah, there he is. Yes, I can hear his woman's voice, my master has lured her to be the bait to his trap. And now I must strike. My hand pulls my weapon from it's sheath. It's strange and familiar weight fills my hands as I leap from the branch I'm on, running like the wind as soon as my feet find the ground. My armour grips and glides over my flesh like a second skin, thin enough to feel every blade of grass, every breeze, but stronger than steel mail.
Not speaking, I leap from of the deeply cut banks of the stream, using the it's height advantage to come at Inu-nee-chan at a better angle, my blade in my right hand, the chain in my left already swinging, while my sword is ready at my side.
His great blade meets mine, diverting the blow meant for his head. He speaks and grunts, I barely breath as we battle. He is wonderful, worthy prey. Dirty half-breed. I was born to kill demons like he and his father, this shall be revenge for the debasement of his poor mother. Yes, you abomination, you may carry your father's blade, but he was a dog. Mine was a hunter of your kind.
But wait, my father was a... And my mother is still alive.
Revenge for my sister, who trained me. But my sister isn't dead. Part of says she is. She died the night I did. The beast resurrected her to do his bidding, while Master saved me from him. But Inuyasha loves my sister, protects her. Sisters...
Senses honed to a sword's edge by her training told me she was coming. Hairikitsu flies between us, breaking my attack with the chain. Ah sister, dear, I shall release you. Her arrow strikes his blade, returning it to its public face. But my sister doesn't use arrows, and the angle was wrong. My sister is a miko, and she does use arrows.
Seeking his allies, I see her. Sister. Tall, masked as I am, clad in the same black and pink battlesuit she wore the night she died. And there is the other one. The short one, in the green school uniform and the piercing voice. Sister.
Sango. My sister's flesh must die, so her soul can know peace. Kagome. I only have one sister. He says attack, kill my sister, but who is my sister?
Who am I?
----
In his own bedroom, Souta woke up, soaked in sweat, tangled in the bed sheets, his heart thundering as the nightmare faded.
What was that? And who was that girl? Turning the light next to his bed on, Souta studied his face long and hard in mirror. He could still feel that other body, so like his, but not his, not quite. He could even remember what he looked like, in the reflection of the river and of the blades. He was so aware, he even saw that. He could smell everything, cataloged the night blooms from scent alone. Memories of his dreams were always muddled, muted. Even this one was, but the perceptions were so much greater than normal senses awake that it was nearly overpowering even weakened by wakefulness.
Why would I attack Inuyasha?
---
"Hey, Kagome." Four days had passed since the nightmare, and Souta had nearly fogeten about it. His sister had been home for several days, and Inuyasha still had not yet come to drag her back to his time. Souta hoped that Inuyasha would come just before dinner, and would have to stay. That was the only way his eleventh birthday could get better, he told himself as he bounced happily up the walk.
"Hey, Souta. How was karate?"
"Hideoshi-sensei wants me to be a bad guy at this weekend's demo."
"Bad guy?"
"Hai." Pausing to dig through his backpack, Souta pulled out a bundle of black cloth. "Me and a couple other 'ninja' are going to get beat up by a girl. I'll show you." With that, the little typhoon that was her younger brother spun into his room.
Kagome giggled, thinking about Sango beating up demon's by dozen. She's the closest thing to a real ninja I know of. A couple of lowly samurai would be easy. More than one monk, on the other hand...
"Oi, wench! You're late. We've been waiting all day for you!" The foul, rude, bad tampered voice cut across the courtyard of the shrine. Kagome twirled to face the hanyou.
"Inuyasha, I had to do make up work to keep my grades up. I've told you, I need to pass these tests, and it's Souta's...." His eyes glanced past her for a moment, before he reached for her, grabbing her shoulder.
Tessaiga flowed into it's true form as Inuyasha drew it, his other hand pulling Kagome off her feet and throwing her behind him. The hanyou stood ready, legs spread and bent, ready to attack or to dodge. Or to take a strike meant for her. "I don't know how you got here, but this time you're going to loose, one way or another."
Kagome rolled over, trying to figure out what was attacking them. There were demons in her time, yes, but she would have felt them on the shrine grounds. This was in the living room of all places. But there he was, suited in black, his face hidden. "Kohaku..." How did he get here? Naraku couldn't be here? Oh no...
"Where is your Master? Where is that bastard, Naraku?!"
The eyes of the small figure were wide, bulging as he raised his hands, showing them to be empty. "It's just me, wait! What's wrong Inuyasha? It's just me, Souta!"
"Souta?" Lowering his sword a little, the hanyou let his apparent enemy pull off his cloth mask. Yes, it was Souta, dressed in black from the hood on his head to the tabi on his feet, his face slowly turning the color of wood ashes. "What's the meaning of this?"
"Souta? You alright?"
"Feh! You ask him if he's alright, after he pulls a stunt like that? Damn idiot just about got himself chopped in two."
---
It had been a long and sleepless night for Souta. He had talked his sister and Inuyasha into explaining who this "Kohaku" person was, even though he knew they weren't telling him everything. Hideoshi-sensei had talked about ninja before, and dropped hints about ki and youkai and things like that. If Souta hadn't lived with his grandfather, and then had his sister spending her time fighting demons, he would have missed it, or just thought they were old stories. Warriors who hunted demons had existed, or at least that was what he'd put together. Now he knew that they had existed. One answer to one question, and a thousand more in it's place.
School that day had been a waste, his mind on other things, and in other times. At the end of the day, Souta started walking, trusting his feet to take him home. They didn't. Instead he found himself outside of Hideoshi-sama's dojo. He's always said that if we need to think in quiet, and there are no classes, and the door is open...
The door was indeed open when he tried it, and silently he slipped inside. There was no class in session this afternoon, not for a few hours yet. Leaving his pack and shoes in the entryway, Souta quietly padded across the tatami covered floors. In the corner, next to the display of historical weapons, he sat, staring at his feet in silence. He wasn't quite sure how long he'd been there, when a voice broke in.
"Konichiwa, Souta. Are you well? You've been sitting there for several hours."
"Gomen, Sensei, I should have looked for you."
"I have offered my dojo as a sanctuary to my students. You had no need to ask permission. I should apologize for disturbing your meditation." With a practiced eye born of many years teaching, the transplanted Nisei looked over his student. "Care to talk about it?"
As Souta explained about the dream, being careful to leave out references to demons and time travel, his sensei sat, absorbing every word.
"You did not tell me everything, but there are secrets you are protecting. Secrets are a powerful thing. Telling the wrong person, or even the right person at the wrong time, can destroy you. But if you keep them forever, they will also destroy you. If you feel I need to know what is being unsaid, I will be honored."
"Thank you, sensei."
"I can at least answer part of your questions. You were using a kama, a sickle. Nasty weapon, especially when you add a chain to it." Standing, he took a key from around his neck, unlocking the nearby case. From within, he withdrew a slender, wicked looking claw of a weapon. "Was it one of these?"
Souta could only stare. It wasn't one of those, it was that one. His hands knew it's balance, it's grip, it's weight on sight. He could feel it, tucked through his belt or in his hands. He knew how it threw over and underhand, how many meters were needed to make a full turn, how long the chain was. He could feel it call to him, as if from far away. His back ached to feel the familiar outline as his hand started to rise on it's own. "It's old."
"Hai. I found it in an antiquities auction in America. I'm afraid it would have been a garden implement if someone else had bought it. But it is a little much for you to handle yet, and it's too fragile to use. It was a ceremonial piece. I think." Replacing it back in the cabinet, Hideoshi-sensei pulled out two rattan and foam mock-ups of the weapon. "These training kama don't have the weight, or the chain, but if you want to learn the basics of the weapon in your nightmares, I have some time."
"Sensei?"
"It is a little odd for a student at your level to be learning these, but five hundred years ago, you would have learned how to use this about the time you could walk, if you were peasant, even if it was just to cut grass and rice." Picking up one of the two weapons, he held it loosely. "Take the other one."
Memories of things he'd never done, of lessons never learned flooded through Souta's mind, flaying his nerves with ice as he took a grasp on the weapon, assuming a stance that felt both familiar and alien at once. "Like this?"
"Are you sure you never held one of these? Let's see what you know- come at me."
Souta crouched, watching, measuring his sensei's movements and balance, reading his stance. A slight shift of sensei's leading leg told the boy to duck, to move. Even though it was only a feint, his reactions left his sensei open. Only years of experience allowed Hideoshi to avoid the slash that would have gutted him with a live blade, and then it was a close thing.
Souta's foot shot out, low, sweeping his opponent's legs. His body was his, but it felt distant, as his soul told him when to strike. With a live blade, Hideoshi would have been decapitated.
"Souta! Hold!" Letting go of the training kama, Hideoshi grabbed the boy's wrists in his hands as they descended, and held on tight. The boy writhed, his eyes unblinking as he fought the grip for several long heartbeats, trying to force his way through to make what would have been killing strike with a steel blade, nearly silent and barely breathing, before his eyes closed and he started to tremble.
"Hideoshi-sensei? I'm so sorry, what happened? Are you alright?"
"Hai, that is why the floor is padded and the blades are foam." Letting go of his student's hands, Hideoshi looked up. "Damn, Souta, what was that?"
"I.. I don't know, sensei."
Breathing hard, sitting up, the older warrior looked at his pupil. "Your eyes were a different colour, but they are changing back."
They sat in silence, trying to figure out what happened, and how. "Souta, I think you may be needing some one-on-one training. Are you interested? I'd like to find out what you know and what you are capable of. You couldn't even come close to this last night."
"Sensei, is there something wrong with me?"
"I doubt it. But you aren't going to be on the demo team you were originally assigned to this weekend." Rising to his feet, Hideoshi passed Souta back the kama. "What to try again?"
---
Tired, but happily so, Souta readied himself for bed. Hideoshi-sensei had been spending more time with him, a couple extra hours a week, and his skills were getting better quickly. Not all of it was karate, and sensei had had to leap out of the way more than once. Every time, he muttered about things that hadn't been done in hundreds of years, or about people who didn't need to learn, but to remember. At times, it felt as if he was looking through a second set of eyes, or he was guiding another's hands, but nothing like the first time with Hideoshi-sensei. He now knew who he was, Higashuri Souta; his sister was Kagome, and he would never attack Inuyasha.
Scratching his back, Souta's fingers ran over the birthmark in his back. He had never seen it, but his mother had told him that he had it. It looked like a little scar, slightly puckered, just below his right shoulder blade.
I know who I am.
---
Alone in his darkened chamber, Kohaku woke from his sleep at the sound of whisper quiet footsteps. His hand reached for his weapon at the side of his pallet as he oriented himself. "Master Naraku?"
"No, it is Kagura." The wind demon glided through the entryway, crossing to the young warrior's side. My side. "Master wishes your presence in his study. The beast is afield again, and Master requires your skills against him."
"Is my sister with him?" Standing, I sheathed my blade along my back, and followed Kagura through the fortress.
---
Author's notes:
In the anime and the manga both, at least to my eyes, Souta looks more like Sango than he does Kagome, and Kohaku looks more like Kagome than he does Sango. And they look like brothers. People are reborn. As a Taijya, in a way, Kohaku was a guardian of the jewel. Would he not be reborn when it was? I'm also not sure if I buy the theory that Kohaku isn't in his body anymore. If he is there, think of the crap that Naraku must be feeding him.
As for the last bit, sorry about the gear shift. I dont' know, maybe Im the only one with dreams that change from 3rd to 1st person in the middle.